'World's oldest person' dies: but was Georgian Antisa Khvichava really 132?
Simon Crerar
NLN
October 10, 201210:46AM
- Attributed her good health to a daily brandy
- Only spoke in her local language of Mingrelian
- Claims never verified by Guinness World Records
Antisa Khvichava on July 8, 2010, during her 130th birthday party in Sachino, Georgia. Source: AFP
A GEORGIAN woman whose claim to have been born in 1880 would have made her the oldest human being ever, has died without officially proving her age.
If her claims were true, Antisa Khvichava was born in the same year Ned Kelly hanged, was 20 when Australia's colonies federated in 1901, and 50 when Australia entered the Second World War.
Mrs Khvichava laid claim to the record two years ago on her alleged 130th birthday.
She held Soviet-era documents which she insisted proved she was born on July 8, 1880.
However, experts have cast doubt on her age because she lost her original birth certificate, which she claimed had been destroyed in one of the many wars, civil wars and revolutions she lived through.
If Mrs Khvichava really was 132 when she died it would mean that her now 72-year-old son Mikhail was born when his mother was 60.
Mrs Khvichava , who lived with a 42-year-old grandson in an idyllic vine-covered house in remote mountains in Sachino, Georgia, retired from her job as a tea and corn picker in 1965 aged 85.
Her family includes ten grandchildren, 18 great-grandchildren and four great-great-grandchildren.
The world's oldest living person officially verified by Guinness World Records is Besse Cooper of Georgia, USA, who was born in Tennessee in 1896 and celebrated her 116th birthday in August.
Frenchwoman Jeanne Louise Calment, who died in a nursing home in Ales aged 122 years and 164 days in 1997, has the oldest-ever age verified by Guinness.
